The Five Short Pieces for
Piano were composed in 1975. They are the direct outcome of a period in
which I spent much time analysing piano pieces by composers ranging from Webern
to my contemporaries of that decade. The techniques which I developed as a
product of that research, and are clearly evident in these little pieces, are
those which explore and reveal the interdependence of the melodic and the
harmonic dimensions of the music. The sequence of pieces opens affirmatively but
ends with a musical question mark, an indication perhaps that I was still
unaware as to the direction that these developing techniques were to lead me.